Can of Fish Eggs
by Seankirk
Summary: Heero’s on a mission, and Duo finds himself reluctantly along for the ride.


Can of Fish Eggs

[Author's Note: This is my first attempt at the GundamW universe so I tried to keep it brief. If you have any comments, death threats, tirades, fits of verbal anger, words of pity, helpful advise or maybe even praise, feel free to e-mail me at sean@voice.bloomu.edu. Hope you enjoy.]

It was the lizard part of Duo's brain that reacted first, the animal part buried deep within the subconscious. Diligently scanning the surroundings for danger as the conscious mind dances oblivious throughout the day, it perceives the unperceivable, ever ready to propel the body out of immanent danger with an adrenaline rush or a cold shiver down the spine. It was this part that wrenched Duo out of Morpheus' realm and into the sudden reality of the dark empty room, a cold bead of sweat slowly meandering down the boy's reclined head. Staring into the pitch, Duo lied motionless, taking deep deliberate breaths. Suddenly, in one swift seamless motion, he sat up, retrieved the gun from the floor with his right hand and pointed it into the darkness. With his left hand, he turned on the lamp. Heero sat reclined, arms folded, occupying the only chair in the sparsely furnished room. Head slightly tilted down, the dark haired youth stared emotionlessly down the barrel of Duo's gun. Duo relaxed, letting his arm fall freely to his side, the weight of the weapon causing the appendage to swing slightly, inches above the cold metallic floor. Duo ran his left hand through the front of his hair.

"Damn it Heero," he exclaimed as he fell back into a supine position. "I could have shot you. What kind of person watches people sleep?"

"You sleep too soundly," Heero replied as he stood. He was wearing his long black raincoat. They were going somewhere. "Get dressed. We're needed." 

Duo moaned, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes before turning towards his alarm clock. 2:30 blinked in uncompassionately bright red numbers. 

"Shit," he lamented into the empty ceiling. "What a way to start the morning."

            A few minutes later, Duo emerged from his room, jacket in hand, stuffing the hem of his red shirt into his pants. Heero waited for him by the door of the small southern European apartment they were sharing. It was nothing permanent, it was comfortable, it was suspiciously close to a conference which Relena was attending, and besides, Duo didn't have anywhere better to be at the moment. The three toured the small local towns as a group and spent the better part of Relena's free time together, however Duo made sure to occasionally disappear when he thought it appropriate (or Relena hinted). Heero for his part never gave any indication that he was involved at all with Relena. She was just another girl, one that he would walk naked through the fires of hell for, but still he assured himself that she was just like any other civilian, remarkable as she was. This glaring denial served as unending amusement for Duo and provided him with plenty of verbal ammunition (generally to no visible avail). Duo put on his jacket, freeing his long ponytail as he hurried towards door. The two pilots stepped out into the cold winter night and began walking towards the center of town. After a few blocks, Duo posed the obvious question.

            "So, where are we going again? I ask this with the full recollection that you have yet to tell me why I had to be woken up in the middle of the night and sent walking in the dead of winter," Duo rattled off quickly, his breath white and visible in front of him. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets with little effect.    

            "Supply run," Heero returned, apparently unaffected by the cold. Staying close to the center of the relatively large town, the boys never needed to walk very far. Normally the rustic European charm of the old town contrasted nicely with the modern commercial centers that fueled the economy. In the empty darkness however, the buildings seemed dead, shrouded in a monochromatic eeriness. This made the bright insomniac lights of downtown all the more inviting. At the square, Heero took a brief scan of the area, stopping on a 24-hour grocery store, it's windows covered with a plethora of money saving advertisements. The only store clerk visible was an elderly gentleman arranging a pyramid of brightly colored pickled yam cans. As the boys entered, a small silver bell announced their presence, and the old clerk paused his stacking and stood up, the sight of teenage boys entering his store at 2:30 in the morning not filling him with the greatest amount of happiness. He was almost completely bald except for the bushy white patches growing wildly above his ears. He wore glasses, yet looked over them at the approaching boys. 

"Can I help you boys?" he asked with a perfunctory manner, expecting the usual non-committal reply. He was surprised (as was Duo) when Heero replied, "Yes, we need this," as he offered a small piece of paper to the merchant. The man took the paper, read it silently, and then returned his puzzled gaze back to the boys, only to return to the paper a minute later, it's contents baffling the old man. Duo glanced around the well-stocked store, colorful adds enticing him to buy their products. They were the only patrons there. After a moment of hesitation, the merchant let loose a thundering laugh, instantly recapturing Duo's attention.

"You're kidding right?" the man exclaimed, as he scratched the extreme top of his barren head. "Isn't beluga caviar a little rich for your blood kids?" 

Heero retorted the claim by removing a government account card, the global government's seal plainly visible on the gold colored credit card held betwixt the boys two fingers. 

"Say no more," the merchants stated as he walked over to his computer. "I should have guessed you were with the government. Who else would be up at this ungodly hour." The man made a quick search of his inventory, but soon turned from the screen shaking his head. 

"Nope," he said, "I didn't think he had it in stock. Don't get much call for caviar, let alone the beluga kind. I can order it though."

"How long," Heero asked.

"A week, fortnight at the most."

"Too long. Is there any place else that might have it?" Heero replied.

"No, not around here. I can remember a time when all I had to do was get on the global network and I could have East Peruvian chicken teeth here in 24 hours. But thanks to the wars I'm lucky I can stock oatmeal and the phone system works. You boys have no idea what kind of mess the shipping routes are in right now," the merchant lamented. "However, now that I think about it, there's a small port town about three hours from here that's bein' used as a temporary shipping port while the main harbors get repaired. I hear they get all sorts of different ships comin' in there. Dresmith's the name. If anyone in the area has it, they will." 

Heero thanked the clerk with a slight nod of his head and turned towards the door, Duo, taken away from a display of frozen pizza boxes, hurried to catch up. Once outside Duo exploded.

"You drag me out of bed and into the cold for a damn can of fish eggs?"

"We need a vehicle," Heero returned coldly. Duo shook his head, sighing.

"What's the use?" he conceded. "I saw a parking lot on the way down."

A moment later Duo found himself in the passenger seat of an old army jeep, driving south towards Dresmith and the promise of caviar, a delicacy that he had found distasteful on several occasions. Nevertheless, here he was at 300 hours in the morning, winding down empty narrow country roads. The jeep was old and had been easy to steal. The two would have undoubtedly stolen whatever car they needed, but "borrowing" a military vehicle didn't seem quite as bad, the habit acquired early in the war. They drove silently for a long time, neither caring much to talk. As far as Heero was concerned, there was no need for talk. The mission was clear. The objective had been identified, the location was known and any obstacles to that objective would be efficiently eliminated. The reasons behind the mission were irrelevant. The assignment was reason enough for a Gundam pilot. Heero asked for Duo's help and he had accepted it without condition, as was expected. Any further talk would be superfluous. Duo knew this. He also knew this can of fish eggs must be extremely important to Heero in order for him to even think about asking Duo's help. However, this was not a time of war, nor were they on a mission, in the traditional sense, and the god of death had become extremely curious about this particular quest. 

"So," he began, as he placed his hands behind his head and slumped back into a more comfortable position, the hard seats making this difficult. "Since when did you start eating fish eggs? I thought you didn't eat, you know, like you don't sleep, or blink, or perform other bodily functions that us poor mortals must perform."

"It's not for me," Heero replied without talking his eyes off the road. Duo didn't need to ask who the caviar was for, there was only one other person. 

"Why the hell does Relena need Beluga caviar at 400 in the morning?" 

It was clear that Heero didn't want to have the conversation, but unless he pushed Duo out of the speeding vehicle, an option that wasn't presently available, he was stuck. Heero shot his partner a glance without turning his head and stated, "Relena needs it for the conference. Several local representatives have agreed to meet with her and she wanted to make them a certain dish. But the cooking staff couldn't find any beluga caviar which is needed for the recipe."

"And so she asked you to find some?"  

Heero was silent for a moment but then admitted, "She didn't ask. She was telling me about her problem finding it and I figured it would be best if we got it for her."

"How benevolent of you. And so upon hearing her plight the first thing you do is roust me from my bed and go in search of it," Duo stated with great dramatics and waving of his arms. "Which of course," he continued, "begs the question, what were you two doing together at 200 hours?"

Heero ignored the implication much to Duo's dismay. The latter slumped back into his uncomfortable seat. "I still don't see why you needed me along on this grocery trip." 

The very edge of Heero's mouth curled slightly and he glanced over to his partner.

"You sleep too much," he stated. "I thought you could use the exercise." 

Duo rolled his eyes. "Next time remind me to shoot you."

"You already got your chance. Next time aim better."

It had been too many hours on the road when suddenly the Mediterranean Sea opened endlessly in front of them, the dark water unnaturally still. The small port town of Dresmith looked dwarfed by the numerous large cargo ships crammed into its harbor. Upon entering the town, the two boys found the streets full of life. They pulled the jeep up besides a man stocking produce in front of his store.

"Good morning," Duo shouted through the open jeep window. The man stopped his arranging and came over to the vehicle. He was a chubby man, dressed in blue with a large mustache covering a good part of his face. He looked exceedingly jolly for such an early hour and almost laughed as he stumbled over.

"Good morning boys," he answered. "What can I do for you this fine winter morning? I just got in a fresh bushel of pineapples from the tropics. Just the thing to brighten those gloomy winter blues."

"No thank you, but we are looking for beluga caviar. Russian if you have it, but any kind will do," Duo stated, looking back at Heero to confirm his statement. At the request, a wave of melancholy fell over the man's face, and he shook his head angrily.

"No," he stated gruffly. "You can't get anything like that here. Thanks to the militia we can't get anything of value around here. Automobiles, electronics, steak, lobster, calamari, all are stolen by those thugs before we can even get our hands on it."

"Can't you go to the police?"

"Police against an armed militia? Not likely. Besides, with all the money their making on reselling the items to outside markets, they have most of the regional government on their payroll."  

Heero pushed Duo aside and asked, "Where do they keep the items?"

"It's a large compound just outside of town," the man said pointing west. "You can't miss it." The jeep drove off suddenly, throwing Duo back into his seat and sending a cloud of dust into the air. The merchant watched the jeep until it turned a corner and was out of sight. 

"Military vehicle," the man mused. "Those soldiers are getting younger and younger." Turning, he went back to his produce stand and continued setting up for another day.

Duo was laying in the back of the jeep attempting to sleep. They had found a secluded spot near the compound and Heero had gone off to do some recognizance. Duo was certain Heero had known about all of this from the start. He must have researched the whole situation before hand and knew that they would have to go up against a small army. That's why he wanted Duo along, to watch his back. Duo couldn't help but feel honored. Heero had always been a loner, even when facing suicide missions for little reason other than they were there. What was the saying he used to say, 'life is cheap, especially my own'… This was awful careful of Heero to bring backup. Duo was wondering if Relena had anything to do with this change of heart, when the driver side door opened and he jumped up. It was Heero.

"There's only two guards outside, one at the gate and one doing a perimeter check They perform status checks only every half hour. They've gotten sloppy, but we should still do this by the numbers. You drive up to the gate and I'll take care of the guard."     

"How aggressive?"

"We aren't officially at war. Don't kill anyone if you don't have to," Heero stated as he handed Duo his gun. Duo pulled the clip and saw it was fully loaded. 

"Tell me Heero, as soon as Relena told you about her caviar trouble, did a little voice in your head say 'Mission Accepted'?" Heero allowed himself to smile and answered by raising an eyebrow knowingly. With the conversation over, Heero disappeared into the woods and Duo switched seats. Looking out into the woods after Heero, Duo shook his head in disbelief. 

"God bless that girl," he stated before roaring off towards the compound. 

The guard at the gate sat sleepily at his post watching a ludicrously oversized television stuffed precariously in the small guardhouse. The last few months had been good to them and his post had become little more than a perfunctory act of protocol. So enthralled with the program was he that Duo actually had to honk his horn in order to roust the guard from his seat. The guard was lean and had a hungry look about his face. 

"What do you want?" he shouted, visibly annoyed by the interruption. Duo took notice that he didn't bother bringing along his firearm. Half tempted to merely knock him senseless with the base of his palm, Duo nevertheless followed the plan.

"I'm lost," he stated exuberantly. "Is this the right road to the Sank Kingdom?"

"The Sank Kingdom?" the guard replied shocked. "What are you some kind of idiot? You're not even in the right…" but unconsciousness prevented him from finishing. Heero drug the body into the guardhouse and opened up the gate.  

"That was _way_ too easy," Duo muttered to himself as he drove through.

            On the other side of the compound, the lone sentry scanned the dark horizon beyond the perimeter, the compound unnaturally alight with the yellow glow of the halogen bulbs. He removed a small package from his jacket and upon opening it, found only one smoke left, the thin cylindrical object jostling freely in the all but empty box. The smoke went into the corner of his mouth; the empty box was crushed and thrown into the empty lot. His right hand did these actions almost automatically and without thought, his left hand retrieving and activating the thin silver lighter before bringing it up next to his face. In a breath, the warm caffeinated smoke rushed into his lungs, depositing the stimulant into his bloodstream before swirling out and mixing visibly with the cold night air. Caffeine was the only recreational drug left on the market, its addictive effects still being disputed in court. But for now, it provided the lone sentry the stimulant needed to make it through another uneventful night's watch. The lizard part of his brain yelled something at his consciousness but he reacted too slowly, a blunt pain in the back of his neck preceding unconsciousness and a trip to the ground. Heero drug the body into the shadows while Duo followed, the latter smothering the abandoned caffeine stick with the toe of his boot.

            "Dirty habit," he muttered as he made his way to the side of the compound building. Heero was busy picking the lock to a side door. The compound had been converted into a giant warehouse. Boxes filled the hallways and walls had been taken out to make room for the countless cluttered items piled high in a maze of movie titles and three piece suits. The boys sat down behind several stacks of music disks. Duo picked out a disk from an open box.

            "The Best of Seki Toshihiko? At least they could steal something with a little better taste. Who wants to hear him?" he asked before tossing it back into the open box. Heero was drawing a diagram on one of the boxes. 

            "This is the compound. As far as I could see, they don't have any mobile suits, so we'll have to take them out one group at a time. It's the night shift, so there should be no more than a half-dozen men. The majority will most likely be located together… here," he stated, putting an x in the middle of the largest room towards the back of the diagram. We'll split up and come around on two sides."

            "Fine, but I have two questions. First, what is a militia doing in the black market trade?"

            "They're a remnant of the old order. There's millions of small armed groups like this all over the world. They were still fighting OZ when the colony war came and now find themselves without a job. It'll take years before the global government can eliminate or absorb all of them, so for right now, they sell stolen goods. You're second question?"

            "Were did you get that pen?"

            Heero looked down at the pen he was using, the gold surface smooth and comfortable to the touch. 

            "A box over there by the door," he stated, pointing with the pen before putting it into his pocket. Duo made a note of grabbing one on their way out. 

            Upon splitting up, Duo found himself in a series of narrow hallways created by the stacked boxes. Stepping over stereos and automatic shoe-shiners, the youth made his way towards the center of the compound, periodically checking various rooms for inhabitants. Generally, the rooms were packed full with assorted goods in greater quantity and variety then the youth had ever seen. So far, however, he had yet to see any containers of caviar. Duo continued in this manner until he came across the sounds of conversation. Scrunching down beside a pile of printer toner, Duo listened to what sounded like two men playing cards. This meant that they would most likely be seated at a table of some sort and thus take longer than normal to grab and position the awkward standard military rifle. This was a decisive advantage. After a quick check of the handgun, Duo stood and prepared to turn the corner.

            "Don't kill anyone if you don't have to… got it," he repeated to himself. With a short jump, Duo rounded the corner, pistol drawn. There were indeed two men sitting at a large oak table, playing a game of cards. The one on the left was a large man, powerfully built. The one on the right was leaner and had a scar running the length of his left cheek. Both men were leaning back in a relaxed position smoking cigars, there rifles lying across the room. What was unexpected where the numerous handguns piled on the oak table, within easy reach and most likely loaded. During the instant that it took for Duo to make this analysis, the two men just sat there, obviously surprised by the intruder. This created an unreal sense of tranquility, like the calm before a storm, as though the human psyche wished to savor the status-quo a moment longer before an epoch brought it crashing down. All of this took less than a second, Duo's hair still caught up in the momentum of his sudden movement, before both men jumped for the table. The first round struck the large man in the right temple before shattering the Waterford crystal behind him, shards of glass mixing with the blood and brain matter before falling to the floor. The second man reached the pile but caught his bullet in the chest as he turned, the impact pushing him into crates of tiny porcelain dogs, several breeds falling into his lap as he slumped to the floor. Both men were quite dead.

            "Oops," Duo remarked before moving on, blood squishing beneath his feet as he walked by. A few feet farther and Duo came across a large garage, several cars parked randomly throughout the interior. This was where they inventoried and sold the vehicles they stole. A nice red convertible caught the young man's eye and Duo made a note of taking it home after everything was done. He had no sooner decided this when a barrage of fire forced him to the ground, the room resonating with the familiar sound of automatic rifles. The troopers must of heard his exchange with their comrades. Positioned behind several wooden crates and large television sets, Duo took a quick peek before being forced down again. There were slightly over a dozen men firing on his position. Duo sat with his back against an air-conditioning unit, unable escape. 

            "Damn it Heero. I thought you said they only had a night shift working," he mumbled before firing blindly backwards over his head.   

            Duo's original two rounds had echoed throughout the enclosed compound, forcing Heero to quicken his pace towards the garage. From his well-concealed vantage point, he assessed the situation. He was on the west wall of a large mostly open room lined with boxes along the interior wall and large garage doors opened along the far side. Past the boxes of assorted goods, there resided twenty or so vehicles of various designs, all of them civilian. Directly outside, Heero could see many rows of similar automobiles lined up neatly in the back parking lot. Beyond these cars were twenty or so large non-descript tankers, presumably filled with petrol. This gave the compound the appearance of a car dealership, except for the roughly fourteen men firing at the east side of the room, presumably pinning Duo down behind stacks of television sets. The men were well armed but vulnerably open, had Heero an automatic weapon of some sort to fire. Since this was not the case, Heero improvised by grabbing a small concrete garden gnome. Moving swiftly along the ground, he made his way along side the vehicles in the garage. Getting into a shiny new black truck, Heero sat beneath the steering wheel with gnome in hand. With his right hand, he felt for the keys and upon finding them, started the truck. The engine roared to life. Two of the men turned, unsure if they actually heard something. Heero placed the vehicle into drive and dropped the gnome onto the gas petal. The truck lurched forward as Heero rolled out and began running, remained low to the ground. The two men yelled something and began shooting at the speeding vehicle as it left the compound and headed across the parking lot, accelerating past the numerous parked cars. The two men's effort was not in vain as the truck suddenly erupted into flames. Unfortunately for them, this did not stop the vehicle and it sped, flaming into one of the parked tankers. Unbeknownst to everyone present, all but four of the tankers were filled with a specially refined synthetic fuel meant for earth-to-space transit. 

            Had a young boy been a passenger of a earth-to-space shuttle at that moment and had he looked out of his window at the southern part of the European Coast, right along the Mediterranean Sea, he would have seen a tiny burst of light. Having seen this light, he then could have rested easy, secured in the knowledge that the same volatile and highly protent substance that created that tiny flash of light was the same hurtling him out of the Earth's atmosphere towards colony L1. 

            For Heero and Duo, the knowledge was less easing. The first thing to hit them was the shock wave, a wall of sound which lifted most of the cars haphazardly into the air and propelled and/or shattered everything inside the opened garage. This was immediately followed by the blast, a barrage of flaming gas pushing itself outward at a tremendous rate. This took the spiraling cars from the air and threw them like two-ton darts towards the open garage.   

            Heero jumped behind a steel support beam just as he heard the explosion and was immediately thrown across the room into a few hundred boxes of basketball sneakers. Duo only witnessed a tremendous noise followed immediately by a large pain along his entire backside followed immediately by blackness. Heero, not so lucky, watched as a red convertible flew by, it's nose crashing into the floor as it flipped over end and smashed through the back wall, bits of everything exploding into the air. Some of the men were killed when the shockwave slammed them into their merchandise, simultaneously breaking all of their bones. The rest were either smeared into the ground by flying Sedans or impaled by a speeding toaster-oven or the like. With its support beams gone, the garage portion of the compound crumbled, the blast luckily propelling the large concrete pieces of the ceiling away from the compound. All of this happened in less than a second.           Heero rose from the rubble, dusted himself off and watched the former parking lot burn. The fire contrasted nicely with the slowly rising sun, the sky a mixture of reds, oranges, and smoke. Removing an extremely thin remote control, he pressed the single button. Across the way, a beeping could be heard, muffled by the debris. Making his way over to the sound, Heero began removing the mishmash of broken objects and pieces of concrete until he found Duo, bloody, unconscious, but still clutching the now beeping gun. Pulling Duo out of the wreckage, Heero found a level spot and laid the god of death down. Duo awoke suddenly, a bead of sweat meandering its way down his dirty face. The first thing he saw was Heero, crouched unemotionally beside him. The next thing he saw was the flaming parking lot and the destruction.

            "Damn it Heero," he said after a while. "Did you have to nuke my red convertible? Hell, did you have to destroy everything? We went through all of this for nothing."

            Heero shock his head and pulled a small blue can out of his coat pocket. In clear white letters, it read  "Beluga Caviar" across the side. With a smile he stood up and stated, "Mission Accomplished."


End file.
